Every year, many of the countryís top deer biologists,
managers and researchers gather together at the Southeast Deer Study
Group.† Since 1977, these deer meetings have had one main purpose: "To
appreciate the economic, aesthetic and biological values of white-tailed
deer."† These meetings also provide a forum to share research findings,
management alternatives and discussion to solve some of our more complicated
deer management problems.†

As always, this yearís meeting did not disappoint anyone.†
The lust for scientific information on deer is virtually endless and
is reflected by the number of† "deer-a-holic" hunters who
religiously attend these meetings.† My friend, Steve Keithley (past
President of the Maryland Bowhunters Society) and I agreed that one
of the more interesting topics discussed was a paper presented by Mrs.
Karen Dasher.† Dasher and her fellow researchers from the University
of Georgia co-authored a paper on† "Scraping Behavior in White-tailed
Deer: Back to the Drawing Board".

There is probably nothing more satisfying to a hunter
than watching a buck make a scrape or walking up on a buck in the early
morning darkness and smelling the fresh urine that he has just deposited.†
There is not a hunter alive who does not look forward to the sight and
smell of a freshly made scrape.† Yet, with all the hipe concerning scrapes,
there are still many unanswered questions from a hunting and biological
point of view.†

At this point, I must admit that although intriguing,
hunting over scrapes simply has not been productive for me.† In fact,
although not a total waste of time, my personal experience hunting over
scrapes has resulted in a lot of time wishing I was somewhere else.†
Iím sure there are many hunters who will totally disagree with me, but
I always question, "Was the main reason for your success the scrape
or the thousand and one other possible intangibles?

One so-called "fact" that I always believed
was that if a dominant buck made a scrape all the inferior bucks in
the area would respect his scrape and never dare to deposit any urine
or scent.† This belief was reinforced many years ago when I saw
a dominant buck make a scrape, rub-urinate and mark the over-hanging
branch.† Later, a yearling buck come by and smelled the freshly raked
ground, then exited the area in haste.† Because the first buck that
I saw was obviously larger, I assumed some specific pheromone from the
urine caused the smaller buck to leave the area.†

The rationale to this scenario is simple, natural selection
dictates that the dominant animals will propagate the species.† Thus,
smaller bucks could be in dire straights if they tried to re-scrape
a dominant buckís scrape.† Because this made so much sense, I assumed
it was fact until Dasher presented her talk on scraping behaviors.†

Prior to Dasherís study, most all scraping behavior
studies were conducted in pens or resulted from incidental observations
when hunting.† A big advance in scraping behaviors occurred when biologists
started to use motion or infrared activated 35mm cameras such as products
manufactured by TrailMaster and CamTrakker.† Although the data the biologists
gathered with these products answered a lot of questions, the problem
was that they could only look at a single point in time.† To solve this
problem, Dasher and her fellow researchers mounted a motion-activated
video camera next to scrapes and recorded deer behavior.† For the first
time, we can now observe all the behaviors of† deer in and around a
scrape area.††

Out of everything Dasher spoke about, Steve and I found
the following quote most interesting, "Subordinate bucks not only
rub-urinate in scrapes, but often initiate scrapes, suggesting that
previous reports are artifacts of forced associations among penned animals.†
Our preliminary analysis suggests that while scrapes may be defended
by one individual, they are more commonly visited by several bucks."†

During the talk, Dasher presented a film clip, which
clearly showed her results.† The film started out with a good buck making
a scrape, shortly followed by other smaller bucks re-scraping and rub-urinating
in the same scrape.† As we sat there and watched the film, I could not
help but to compare this behavior with that of dogs urinating against
a fire hydrant or telephone pole.† Evidently, just like dogs, bucks,
whatever the age or social status are always opportunistic when it comes
to originating or re-freshening a scrape.†† In other words, when the
big boys are out of the area, any buck may initiate or repaw and urinate
into a scrape.

I asked Dasher her thoughts on my past experience when
I observed a small buck abruptly leave a scrape made by a more-dominant
buck.† She said, "Itís hard to tell, we know that when subordinate
bucks are in the presence of dominant bucks, they will hardly ever initiate
or rub-urinate in a scrape.† However, once the dominant animal vacates
the area, itís as if the smaller bucks assume a boss-hog attitude and
may initiate the whole scraping process."

Itís interesting to note, contrary to much of the country
that supports a young buck age structure, the area she studied had many
older bucks.† Pen studies have found that older bucks will actually
suppress the scraping and rubbing behaviors of younger bucks.† Although
not definitive, Dasherís study may contradict this previous finding.††
Current research states that dominant bucks do most of the breeding,
but because lesser bucks are involved in the scrape process they may
also be highly involved.† Some researchers have termed these young bucks,
satellight breeders. †

Another interesting finding dealt with the timing of
buck visits to a scrape.† Dasher found that 90 percent of all visits
occurred after legal shooting hours.† Other studies support these same
findings.† Is scrape hunting worth our time?† Well, research indicates
that if you hunt at night (which is obvious illegal), specifically an
hour after sunset and a half-hour prior to daybreak, you stand a good
chance of seeing a buck visiting a scrape.† Not surprising, Dasher found
visitation rates at scrape sites dropped to near zero percent during
the rutting time period.†† She also reported zero visitation at scrape
sites after the second week of December, during what some hunters call
the second rut.

CJ's Tip:

Bucks of all age structures will visit the
scrapes of other males and just because a buck makes a scrape,
this does not mean he will re-visit.† In fact, a number of bucks
harvested in Dasherís study area were never detected at her
scrape sites.† Is scrape visitation a random occurrence? We
simply do not know.† Research has found that subordinate bucks
are just as likely to initiate and rub-urinate a scrape as long
as the dominant buck is not in sight.†

Visitation of bucks at scrapes generally occur
at night, and just because a good buck makes a particular scrape does
not mean he is the only one utilizing it.† Research has shown all age
classes and social status of bucks will initiate scrapes and re-paw
existing scrapes.

C.J.
Winand is a whitetail biologist from Randallstown, MD.
He is a staff writer for Bowhunter as well as Deer and Deer Hunting
Magazine.